


The Fall of the Black Paladins

by midnightruse



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A little, Angst, Black saves them at the end just like in the ep, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Galaxy Garrison, Galra Keith (Voltron), Honerva is a w(b)itch, Hurt Keith (Voltron), I hate tagging things bc I'm v bad at it, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Minor Violence, Near Death Experiences, One Shot, Pining Keith (Voltron), SHEITH - Freeform, Season/Series 06, Self-Doubt, Self-Sacrifice, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), This is just the Black Paladins episode, Violence, With a little more, clone shiro - Freeform, possible series, season 6, vld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 02:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15209087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightruse/pseuds/midnightruse
Summary: “Shiro, I know you’re in there.” Keith stumbles, trying to regain his footing on the sliding floors of the broken deck. “You made a promise once. You told me you’d never give up on me.”Electricity dances across Shiro’s right arm, and Keith can feel the heat pulsating from the prosthetic limb even from several feet away.Shiro sneers, unmoved by Keith’s words. “And I should have abandoned you, just like your parents did.”Is this just the last ten minutes of S6E5? Why yes, yes it is.Am I aware I used the word sheath in a Sheith fic? Why yes, yes I am.





	The Fall of the Black Paladins

Keith drops to the ground with a yell, barely avoiding the metal beam soaring through the air with deadly force, splitting the air where his head had taken residence the moment before. The high-pitched whir signals another attack, and Keith rolls to his feet in time to witness the purple Galra tech arm singe the ends of his hair rather than beheading him like the attack had clearly intended.

“Shiro, I know you’re in there.” Keith stumbles, trying to regain his footing on the sliding floors of the broken deck. “You made a promise once. You told me you’d never give up on me.”

Electricity dances across Shiro’s right arm and Keith can feel the heat pulsating from the prosthetic limb even from several feet away.

Shiro sneers, unmoved by Keith’s words. “And I should have abandoned you, just like your parents did.”

Keith freezes at Shiro’s words. His tone is too cold, too calculative. There is an anger there so terrifying and dark, it sends chills down Keith’s spine.

“They saw that you were broken.”

Keith knows it is not Shiro talking, not really.

“Worthless.”

It isn’t Shiro.

“I should have seen it too.”

Keith swallows down the bile rising in his throat, ignores the burning behind his eyes and the pain in his chest, a pain more unbearable than his aching muscles and bones. “I’m not leaving here without you.”

Not-Shiro closes his eyes at that. He smiles.

It breaks Keith’s heart, as if it hadn’t already been shattered into a billion little fragments time and time again. His heart broke when the words “Pilot Error” flashed across his tablet screen, then again when he lost Shiro for the second time. Third time must be the charm because it hurts just as much, if not more.

Shiro looks at Keith, the purple in his eyes gleaming in the light of exposed wiring and flashing lights. “Actually, neither of us are leaving.”

One flash of red turns into two, and soon the deck is glowing an ominous magenta, red poisoned by the purple of the Galra.

Keith’s attention is quickly brought back to Shiro when the man screams out in pain, falling to the ground as his arm glows and expands. Keith is helpless to watch as Shiro yells, heat radiating off him in terrifying and dangerous waves.

“Shiro!”

Power shoots from the prosthetic palm, and an energy beam splits the floor in an instant. Keith’s eyes blow wide as he throws himself to the side, desperate to avoid being ripped in half by the raw, uncontrolled power coming from Shiro’s arm.

The end of the deck splits apart from the rest when the blast stops. Keith watches in terror, frozen only for a moment before he is running again. He can feel the heat of the second blast as Shiro aims for him. Keith jumps off the edge, praying to whatever gods will listen for something to land on.

He rolls onto a ledge, only to dodge another life-threatening hit coming from Shiro, who holds a greater advantage as he stands far above Keith. Keith runs, only to find himself faced with an attack on the other side. The level he is on groans before it breaks and begins to plummet through space, taking Keith with it.

He slides down, eyes desperately raking his surroundings for something, anything to stop his impending demise.

His salvation lies at the end of another leap, but it’s his only shot.

He jumps.

And he falls.

And falls.

His fingers reach for the ledge. He barely manages to grab hold, and the strain on his arms is immediate as his body tries to continue its decent. Keith cries out as his muscles scream, but he can’t let go. Not yet.

He has to save Shiro.

With a groan, he pulls himself up over the ledge, only to collapse from exhaustion. Several feet away he sees his Marmora dagger, caught here in his fall from somewhere up above.

His body doesn’t want to move. He is well past his limits. The deck shakes, and Keith knows it is only a matter of time before the rest of this station crumbles.

Keith painstakingly crawls toward his blade, hand outstretched, reaching for something to defend himself with, but his body collapses before he can. He doesn’t know if he has ever felt this tired. He can’t go any further. It’s over.

A grunt is followed by a thud by his head — Shiro. Keith tries to turn his head, to open his eyes, to move a single finger, but his body refuses to obey even the simplest of commands. Even as he hears the Galra arm activate with a plasma blade that will easily cleave his body in half, Keith cannot move.

He hears a yell. Feels the air around him separate, clearing the way for Death.

He is going to die.

Shiro is going to kill him.

He couldn’t save Shiro.

Shiro is going to die.

He and Shiro are going to die.

He failed.

He really was worthless. Broken.

Shiro had promised to never give up on him. And he had promised to do the same.

Keith’s eyes shoot open. He couldn’t give up on Shiro. He can still save him.

With a grunt, Keith’s fingers snatch his blade from the floor, and he braces himself for the hit that comes not a second later. Immediately, his muscles protest, but his mind is stronger, motivated, unrelenting. He can save Shiro.

Shiro’s arm bears down on him, stronger than ever. Keith’s hands shake under the strain and the pressure.

So many things he needs to say. So little time for the both of them.

“Shiro, please.”

They can fix this. He can snap Shiro out of this.

“You’re my brother.”

The only family he has ever known. His savior, his rock, his strength and his weakness. The presence that showed him what living was like. The absence that showed him what hurt truly felt like. The man he’d destroy the universe for — the man who meant more to him than anything ever had or ever could.

“I love you.”

The confession he’d withheld before Shiro left for the Kerberos mission. The words he’d screamed at the stars while he searched for a sign that living was worth it without Shiro by his side. The feelings that never died, that quickly grew stronger as they grew closer as teammates, reforging the bond tapered off by Shiro’s time in captivity. The three words he’d longed to tell Shiro while they sat together late at night, gazing at uncharted galaxies from the Castle’s observation deck. The ones he’d held in from fear of rejection, of losing Shiro again.

Keith’s voice breaks as the words barely force their way out, each syllable laden with pain and exhaustion.

His breath hitches when Shiro freezes. The purple glint in his eyes recedes for a moment, and Keith has hope. Then, as quickly as it had come, that flame of hope flickers out and Shiro’s gaze hardens. His teeth grind together. Keith yells out as he loses ground and Shiro’s arm closes the small distance between them.

“Just let go, Keith. You don’t have to fight anymore.”

The words he’d always wanted to hear. But never like this.

Shiro doesn’t stop there, with neither words nor movement. Keith turns his head, desperate to avoid his neck becoming the blade’s new sheath. His cheek starts to burn.

“By now the team’s already gone,” Shiro growls. “I saw to it myself.”

Shiro pushes down, and Keith screams in pain. His cheek is on fire, flesh burning as Shiro’s hand presses close to his skin. His vision tinges with black and then golden as his Galra genes take over. His fingers burn, and his eyes widen as the black bayard materializes in his hand in sword form. Screaming from effort, he brings the sword up in a deadly arc, ripping through the glowing arm, severing it from Shiro’s body.

Shiro cries out in pain, and Keith pulls himself to his feet, mind torn between the rationality and morality of his actions. Keith watches, hesitantly, as Shiro stumbles and falls to his knees. When the man looks up at him, Keith’s breath stops.

Steel grey eyes meet his own, without a trace of the Witch’s control.

“Keith?”

He sounds scared. Hurt. Confused.

The deck explodes, throwing them both backward. Keith releases the black bayard to grab hold of Shiro’s remaining hand. The man is unconscious, but Keith doesn’t have time to discern if it is from the blast or the pain or something else entirely. They are sliding off the side of the deck and there is nothing to catch them.

With a yell, Keith digs his Marmora blade into the metal surface, desperate for purchase, to save himself and Shiro.

Somehow, when he opens his eyes again, his blade connects him to the remaining piece of the ship. Taking even, steeling breaths, Keith looks down. Shiro hangs, helplessly, separated from death only through Keith’s one-handed grip. He braces himself and pulls Shiro closer to himself, trying to get the man further away from the empty abyss of space.

Just as Shiro is almost level with his own body, Keith’s dagger jerks, losing purchase as it cuts downward. It barely catches at the very edge of the platform, and Keith can tell he only has seconds before the weight of the two of them pulls the blade free, sending them both to their deaths. Alone, maybe the edge would be strong enough to hold, but together they were too much.

Keith looks down at Shiro and shakes his head. He could never let Shiro go. Not now, not ever.

Not when he first saw Shiro, speaking to his class about Galaxy Garrison, telling them how they, too, could find adventure among the stars.

Not when Shiro took him riding on the hoverbike that first time — the first time Keith remembered feeling weightless, like the world wasn’t weighing down on his shoulders for the first time in his short life. His first taste of freedom.

Not when Shiro stood by his side countless times, through the fights with other students, his infractions with instructors, his distrust of everyone. Shiro had promised he’d never give up on Keith. He told Keith he could never give up on himself either.

He can’t give up. Not yet. Not when they are so close to making it. He had lost Shiro too many times. He isn’t giving up on either of them.

Another blast rips the blade free of the edge, and he is falling.

Down.

Down.

Down.

It had always been dark in space. But it is in that darkness, while falling to an inescapable demise surrounded by explosions and chaos and emptiness, that he finds the resolve buried deep within himself. He sees lights reflect off Shiro’s unmoving face, and he somehow sees his future, his everything.

He doesn’t know how, but they are going to make it out of here.

They’ve come too far to give up now.

The universe owes them a happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> This scene got to me in ways VLD hadn't done before, so I had to write it out the way I saw it happen. 
> 
> I am thinking of turning this into a series of one-shots that kind of go along with each other. Essentially, they would follow Shiro and Keith as they deal with the aftermath of fighting each other and building their relationship afterward. Let me know if you'd read it!
> 
> My [tumblr](http://midnightruse.tumblr.com/)  
> My [ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/mallorie/)  
> My [twitter](http://twitter.com/malloriej97/)


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